20 Killer iPhone Game Designs

It’s no secret that beauty does not equal popularity in the App Store, but with competition tightening developers are no longer turning a blind eye to design. The heavies in game development have already dialed in the importance of a well-designed interface and their rankings in the App Store prove this point.

This list shines the spotlight on some indie developers who you might not find in the top 20, but are shining bright in a sea of Krapps. Here’s a roundup of 20 of the best-designed action games from indie developers in the App Store.

Incredibly well executed hand-drawn application. The entire application plays off the pen and notepad theme with pencil to paper sound effects to boot. Watching your men getting eaten by a shark is especially fun.

What’s different about Brave Man from other pixel-graphic games is the designers over at Poppy used the pixel theme throughout, creating a consistent user experience. They also threw in some retro-arcade sounds to build on the old arcade look and feel. Conceptually the game is simple (you play until a finger is chopped off), and a lot of fun!

The object of Killer Whale is illustrated well in its graphics: to eat up smaller fish and become bigger. The characters and even the logo "Killer Whale" have a fat, blown up look. Killer Whale is a fun game that’s easy on the eyes.

Beautifully illustrated, layout of screens and navigation is intuitive and simple to understand. I actually enjoyed looking through the "how to play" screens. Hilarious animations and sound effects when the bunnies are "breeding".